Molecules
by Elfriend
Summary: S13 Ep5 “Advanced Thanatology” Tag. There was a lot left unsaid in this episode. I took the liberty.


There was a lot left unspoken in Season 13 Episode 5 "Advanced Thanatology," but nobody expresses things unsaid better than Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, and this episode included eloquent body language and facial expressions from Misha Collins as Castiel, and Lisa Berry as Billie/Death, as well. We also had a particularly outstanding guest, Alisen Down as Penny Raider. This story describes what I heard that wasn't said. Thank you to @semirahrose on Tumblr for noticing and pointing out the salt line, and Andrea S. from "Carry On's Supernatural Discussion Group" on Facebook for tying Shawn and Jack together for me.

"Molecules"

There was peanut butter on his knuckle, and he licked it off absently as he screwed the lid back on one handed. It was tasteless, but he had to eat, right? He spooned a glob of jam onto the half-made sandwich and squished it down as Sam walked in, false cheer rolling ahead of him like an inescapable tide.

A whisper of feelings, like echoes – first annoyance and then guilt – were gone before he could find any way to hold them.

Sam's upbeat greeting, delivered with the care of someone who has no idea what reaction to expect, should have been enough to jab that guilt full into Dean's gut, with a twist for good measure, but wherever his feelings were right now, they were too far removed for anything but those echoes to reach him, and they wouldn't stick.

Dean was hollow.

There was nobody he knew better than Sam, so it wasn't like he didn't see that his brother was walking small around him. He knew Sam was in pain, and he knew he was adding to it. He didn't want that, but he had about as much control over it as every other damned thing these days – namely, none.

As Sam pressed him to take a breakfast beer, and offered a hunt, just the two of them, Dean realized that Sam wasn't being careful because he didn't know what reaction he would get after all, he was being careful because he knew perfectly well he wasn't going to get any.

That is how he was hurting Sam, not with harsh, thoughtless words, his brother could handle that just fine, (not that it was a picnic, by any means, but he handled it). It was the fact that even Dean's harsh words were devoid of any feeling that was freaking his brother out.

It probably should freak Dean out, too…It didn't.

Sam took off to see about the protective warding in order to keep the bunker safe for Jack while they were gone, leaving Dean with his sandwich. He took a big bite, and it might as well have been made of nothing. No, not nothing, molecules. That is how Cas put it when he got his grace back and his human enjoyment of food went away. He'd really liked peanut butter and jelly, but Sam told him that Cas's grace made him too aware of all the components of the sandwich, spoiling his enjoyment of the whole.

It tasted like too much, he'd said.

It tasted like molecules.

Suddenly it took everything he had to chew and swallow his big bite of "too much," but he finally did, then he washed it down with beer and chucked the rest of it, uneaten. There was only hollow emptiness, no sadness, no grief, not in any way he knew to expect it. He'd never been good at grief, but this was ridiculous.

Dean brushed his teeth mechanically, and then finished the beer. Did it really matter if the toothpaste made it taste like crap? Then he double checked his gear and grabbed his Fed suit that was hanging on his door. Sam must have pressed it.

He was about to sling his bag over his shoulder and head out, when his eyes landed on the box. He didn't over-think the impulse, he just added it.

He had no reason to expect he'd need it, but then again, he'd asked Dr. Robert to put it together because he'd needed it, once, and didn't have it. It was reckless taking all those barbiturates in order to try to deal with Billie, but he knew he'd do it again if he ever needed a one-on-one with a reaper; it hadn't been the first time, after all. With that in mind, a slightly safer cocktail to take him out, and, theoretically, bring him back, seemed in order, if there was ever any important business to conduct in the veil.

Death was dead, Billie was dead, but there was no shortage of Scary, Crazy, Death Machines. He'd find one if he needed one.

…aaaand speak of the devil…

As he was heading to the garage, he found his way blocked by Jack, and just the sight of him sent a raging flood of fury straight through him.

Ok, so, maybe he wasn't completely hollow, there was always that.

After reining it in, he managed a creditably non-threating "Hey," in place of good morning. He wanted Sam to be right about Mary. He doubted it, but he wanted it, and if he was passing off the faith responsibilities to his brother, he should probably lean a little in his direction when it came to Jack, too – or at least try to.

Jack accepted the less-than-enthusiastic greeting and said, "Hey," back, then added, "Sam says you're going on a hunt."

"Yeah, don't worry; he's adding extra warding, so you should be fine." Jack didn't seem worried, and it wasn't what he was hoping to hear, Dean was sure, but it used up enough words to get past him and out of conversational range. It was the best he could do.

Sam had added his bag to the trunk and left it open for Dean, and now he was sitting in the passenger seat, his long legs stretched out of the open door, while scrolling through something on his tablet as he waited.

One more equipment check and Dean closed the Impala's trunk with unconscious care. At least he knew how to take care of her. He'd built Baby back from totaled more times that he could remember any more. That he could control; it was easy. He had the skill, and when it came to Baby, the patience, to buff and polish her back to cherry every damned time. There was satisfaction in that, and he hoarded it like Chuck hoarded toilet paper in the averted apocalyptic future.

At least Chuck had hung around in that version of things, not that he had done anything helpful apart from the toilet paper. Fury boiled in him again, but just for a moment. They were on their own, Sam and him, well and truly alone, now, and Dean didn't intend to waste any time on Chuck. God had deserted them.

Anyway, now they had a case.

A case would give him something to focus on, something he could hunt. When it came to hunting, he was as comfortable, and as confident, as when he was working on Baby. He had the skill, and he trusted it, and there was satisfaction of a sort to be found in that, too – or so he'd thought. Now he wasn't so sure he was remembering things as they actually happened, or as he'd convinced himself that they did.

They'd saved a lot of lives over the years they'd been hunting, and the alternate universe Jack had cracked open was a pretty good indication that "a lot," was a-whole-friggin-lot. But they'd been responsible for the loss of a lot of lives, too. Lucifer getting loose was on them – twice, and so was Eve, and god-Castiel, and the Leviathan. So were Cain and Amara. Jack too, if he was right and Sam was wrong. Even when they screwed up, though, they were always striving to do good, and nobody can say they didn't clean up their messes – no matter what it cost them.

And it cost them dearly.

Really, what was the point of anything that happened since Mary died that first time? Or really since before that, when Mary basically served up future Sam to Azazel, with a future apple, in his future mouth. Or before that, when generations of Winchesters and Campbells had been groomed and herded and shot with cupid's bow to manipulate the universe into producing Sam and Dean Winchester, all so that heaven and hell could chew them up and spit them out again and a-damn-gain?

It was an endless slog through torment and suffering, shame, regret, PTSS, and undiagnosed chronic traumatic encephalopathy. They'd probably both be drooling in pureed spinach if Cas hadn't healed them so many damned times…

No, they'd just be dead – and maybe they should be, everyone else was. That was one thing Dean could count on.

Caring about a Winchester is always a death sentence, eventually. Always.

Dean slid into the driver's seat, and without a word, Sam folded himself into the car and they were on their way, rock-n-roll blaring. Baby he could count on, too, and music, and Sam, always Sam.

_______

Sam didn't say anything about the volume. It was headache inducing for him, but Dean found loud music helpful for dealing. It was just a small thing. He had done a few small things, and would do more, whatever he could think of to lighten his brother's load in what little ways he could, and maybe nudge him to remember what it felt like to be happy, and to be alive.

Their conversation the other day had shaken him. Dean had a hard time with faith in the abstract, and Sam was fine holding on to his for both of them, but Dean's belief in their work, and his belief in Sam and himself and their mission, that was the rock Sam had built his whole life's foundation on long ago, and it had seldom been anything less than solid. Lately, there had been serious tremors, and Sam was troubled.

No, Sam was terrified, left floundering, so that he had devoted little energy to grieving their losses for himself. His outburst at Mia's was as much of a revelation to him as it clearly had been for Dean. But no, how Sam dealt with their losses just wasn't his priority right now. It was how Dean was dealing with them that mattered. He'd left Sam alone, present, but unreachable, and Sam was losing him. He wasn't going to get him back unless Dean decided it mattered, that Dean mattered, that what they did mattered, that life mattered.

That was the priority – survival itself. He'd been without Dean a few times since they had started hunting together, and each time he'd been lost, each time his life had become nothing but its fundamental elements of survival, using one kind of pathological coping mechanism or another. Each time, he had become someone he didn't recognize.

The first time, he had been so afraid to do the job alone, that he'd become one of the monsters. Then Gabriel showed him what obsessive-compulsion and revenge-driven fixation looked like, because it was wearing his face for six months, six long months that never even existed for Dean. He'd revisited that super-fun version of himself when The Mark made Dean a demon, and he took off.  

When Sam went to the cage, he'd come back soulless, without Dean, and without the part of himself that needed his brother, or even cared about him. That wasn't pretty, either. Not at all.

But the very worst was when Sam was completely alone, Bobby dead, Kevin swept away by Crowley, Castiel and Dean vanished in front of his eyes, standing there utterly alone…and he just…shut down completely.

He couldn't cope, so he'd set the real Sam aside and tried to build a brand new one who just pretended, clinging to another lost soul as broken as he was. Amelia. It felt like another life, because that is exactly what it was.

He'd be alone now, too, if he lost Dean. Cas was dead, Mary was missing and God only knew if they would ever see her again, even if she was alive. He'd have to be there for Jack, try to guide him right, and protect him, but if he lost Dean, he would lose himself, too, and he'd be no good for Jack, then. That could have some fairly dire existential consequences.

Sam turned his attention to his tablet. They were going to Grand Junction, Colorado. Maybe there was a good strip club, there. A little legal debauchery might remind Dean he didn't die along with Castiel, that he was still here. If he remembered that much, he might just remember that Sam needed him.

_______

A lot of greasy bacon was in order, so Dean dragged himself through the process of putting himself together so he could hit the complementary buffet.

He hadn't said a word when Sam chose the hotel over their usual, more frugal accommodations. Dean knew why - mints on the pillow and free breakfast. On a good day, that would be enough to make Dean Winchester happy. Sam was being kind and thoughtful, but today wasn't a good day, and Dean wasn't happy.

The strip club hadn't been too bad, the reviews Sam found online were apparently reliable. It wasn't toxic, and it was clean, not that it mattered. Dean had gone through all the motions, and Sam finally left him to his entertainments, maybe he'd been convinced that Dean was enjoying himself. He'd tried to make it look good, but it didn't seem likely that Sam was buying his bullshit.

Sam never bought his bullshit.

Drinking. Drinking heavily; that was all he'd actually accomplished, and he would take the consequences. He deserved them. He deserved that, and much worse.

There was a text message on his phone. "Talking to Mike. Meet back at hotel"

He'd let him sleep in. The niceness was getting to be a bit much, but Dean had definitely received the message that Sam was worried, loud and clear. He hadn't been able to deceive his brother, and he couldn't really bother expending the effort to do better, even though he knew he should.

Sometimes Dean was sure Sam would be better off without him. What good was he, now that he had nothing left?

He hadn't been much good, yesterday. The kid, Shawn, he'd been like Lucas, so afraid he couldn't talk about the monster, but it was all he could think about, so he wasn't speaking at all, just drawing the object of his terror over and over again. Dean could relate.

Every time he closed his damned eyes, he saw Crowley taking his own life in order to close the breach, he saw Mary get pulled through it, gone and likely killed by Lucifer, just like Cas.

And again and again he saw Castiel lunge out of the diminishing rift, Dean so relieved that he'd made it out, and then suddenly he was just dead. His wings burnt into the dirt with abrupt and brutal finality.

Cas was so like a child in many ways, naïve to the ways of Earthbound humans. How and why he'd chosen Dean as his guide and role model in that regard was a mystery to Dean. It must have been timing. Cas had begun to question the orders Heaven was sending him, nevertheless, he had lead a raid on Hell and pulled Dean out, because heaven said so. After that, he just sort of imprinted on Dean as an example of humanity and free will.

With every decision Cas made against heaven, always for him, he became more and more Dean's responsibility. Cas rebelled, usually because Dean had asked him to, or guilted him, or goaded him in anger. Very quickly, Castiel had transferred eons blind loyalty from heaven, to Dean. How could Dean not feel responsible for every single thing that followed? How could he have failed so utterly at protecting his friend so many times? Finally, he'd let him down to death.

Dean understood that Cas wasn't really a child, far from it, and that his decisions were his own, but Dean would always take responsibility for him, that is just the way it was. Castiel had returned to them again and again because he was part of them, now. He was family, their best friend, bound so tightly into their lives that there was no accounting of the number of times they'd saved each other, hurt each other, and forgiven each other.

Cas always returned to them, sometimes against all odds, but there was no coming back this time. Dean built the pyre over the spot bearing the blackened outline of Castiel's wings, and he'd stood vigil with his brother as the empty vessel burned.

And with Jack, he'd been standing with Jack, too. The son of Lucifer had claimed Castiel and deceived him, and created the circumstances that lead to his death. It was Dean's fault, but it was Jack's fault, too. The fact that, like Castiel, he had imprinted on Dean as a role model, was infuriating. And it was an unwelcome shock of recognition.

Dean couldn't go through that, not again. It was better to blame him, hate him, believe the worst and close his eyes to the evidence that Jack wasn't evil. If he wasn't evil, Cas's death truly was all Dean's fault, and he should have trusted Cas when he'd told him the kid was good.

Damn it, Cas.

______

Sam couldn't move. It happened in slow motion, and it happened too fast. Where did those syringes even come from? Why did Dean have them? Of all the ways they could have handled a house full of ghosts, how was this the thing that was happening?

He could barely form words of protest, wasn't sure anything he said was even coherent, trying to adjust to the reality of a situation that made no sense – and find a way to talk him out of it, but Dean was set on this dangerous risk.

Before Sam could even make his shock-heavy limbs move, Dean plunged a cocktail of death into his own chest, gasping and choking out his life in seconds.

Hands unsteady, Sam set his watch for the three minutes Dean had specified. His brother would never forgive him if he administered the second shot before that time was elapsed. And if he didn't wait, then the only thing this exercise would have accomplished would be, what? Proof that Dean's hold on his life was slipping? Proof that he didn't think he would be able to come back to Sam and be his brother again? That maybe he didn't want to?

He looked so vulnerable lying there. Dead. Dean was lying there dead. Oh, God, are you listening? Chuck!!!

Sam fumbled the salt, his muscles weren't cooperating with his brain at all, but he managed to circle Dean in a protective ring, realizing too late that he hadn't thought to make it big enough for him to be inside it with Dean. He didn't care. He clutched the second syringe and stared at the seconds counting down on his watch.

When nothing happened - the time came, the syringe was administered, and nothing happened – Sam was full-on shaking. He heard his own voice as if he were standing outside himself, a long string of no's, like an agonized moan.

Don't leave me alone, you said you never would. Come on, Dean!

______

Billie sent him back, told him he'd have to go on living, but it was clear he didn't want to. That was a new development.

Not that Dean Winchester was ever particularly precious about his own life, but he'd never chosen death over life if he was given a choice. Even when he'd made a deal to die, which he'd done more than once, he'd find a way to get around it one way or another. Every. Single. Time.

Oh he'd said all the things she would expect. He wanted to go back to his hunt, get back to his brother. He wanted that, but he also didn't. Things were different for both of them, it seemed.

There was a cosmos worth of charges in her purview, now, and she had an eagle-eyed view of things. The fate of everything hung on the choices of two men who drove her half mad with their flagrant disregard for the rules, and things were taking place out of her sight, too. Considering how all-encompassing her sight was these days, it was particularly vexing to not know a thing.

That was the only reason she'd kept Dean in the veil long enough for their little chat. She'd needed to know what he knew about the rift.

It had been enlightening in more ways than she expected. She didn't know she could be surprised by a Winchester. Irritated yes, surprised, no. Dean had expressed his dissatisfaction that he couldn't save his mother, or his angel, or the young innocent boy.

He'd meant Shawn Raider, one of the souls Jessica reaped at the Meadows house, but she was sure he meant Jack, too, and that was interesting. Perhaps he was less afraid that Jack would follow in his father's footsteps, than he was that he wouldn't, and that then Dean would fail him somehow.

Dean and Sam Winchester were important, and they had work ahead of them, but Dean needed his belief back, or she'd be seeing him sooner than she should.

_____

It might have been a minute, it might have been an hour, but Dean was thrust, none too gently, back into his body, and gasping a painful first breath. Sam grabbed at his shirt and hauled him into a sitting position, asking in a strained voice, "you're alright?"

Damn, the kid was so pale! Dean felt a stab of remorse. Would he always, instinctively, do the exact thing that would do maximum damage to the people he loved?

He watched Sam literally fall against the wall, his arms raised slightly as if he was about to surrender, and then dropped limp at his sides, too heavy to lift anymore, while repeating dully, "you're alright, you're alright…"

And Dean hated himself.

______

Sam volunteered to talk to Penny. It was kind of his area, anyway, and it gave him someone else's pain to focus on. She was not ok. When they wheeled out Shawn's body, everything ended for her, and he could see her life shift into the basic elements of survival, just as his had.

Sam hoped she would find a way to build from those elements, even if she had to do it molecule by molecule, and then she'd live again. He needed to believe she could.

Dean seemed fine, physically, for a man who'd been dead a couple of hours ago, better than Sam was, actually, but when he related his encounter with Billie, Sam heard exactly what he dreaded to hear in Dean's voice.

Dean said he needed a win, and Sam would happily give him one if he could, and pray that it was enough.

Not until the sound of Dean's phone ringing woke him, and he saw his brother's face transform from blank, to shock, to something else that might have been hope, did Sam begin to think there were still some viable stirrings of life in his brother.

It had taken a few short minutes to devastate their lives completely, and since then he'd been carrying a live grenade of dread in his gut, waiting for his brother to pull the pin and end them both.

And now, again, in a matter of moments, everything changed. Now they were going to pick up Castiel.

He had all the questions, all the worries and doubts that a hunter has in this kind of situation. He would need to be sure what they were getting back was really Castiel. For now, though, he just wanted both his brother, and his friend, back.

______

Dean didn't want to risk hoping, so he focused on the road, and closed the miles between him and finding out for sure if he could even dare. Sam was silent at his side, likely doing much the same.

And then there, waiting, just where he said he'd be…his best friend. The angel that pulled him out of hell and stayed to become family.

Dean saw Cas's face, and he took the damned win.


End file.
